Trash or Treasure: How We Sort Recycling

Every year, Americans throw away about 80 million tons of paper — enough to fill a football stadium 50 stories high! But most of that paper could be turned into brand-new paper without cutting down a single tree. That is the magic of recycling: turning what looks like trash into new treasure.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to: - Name three materials that can be recycled and explain why - Sort materials into recycling, trash, and compost - Explain what happens to a plastic bottle after it goes in the recycling bin - Describe one way sorting waste correctly helps animals and nature

Recycling means taking an old material and making it into something new instead of throwing it away. Many materials around your home can be recycled: Paper and Cardboard: old newspapers become new newspapers, cereal boxes become paper bags. Paper can be recycled up to 5 to 7 times before the fibers get too short and weak. Glass: a glass jar can be melted and made into a brand-new jar over and over without losing quality. Glass is almost endlessly recyclable. Metal: aluminum cans are a recycling superstar. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to power a TV for 3 hours. It also takes 95% less energy to make aluminum from recycled cans than from raw ore dug out of the ground. Plastic: plastic is trickier because it comes in many types. Look for the small number inside the triangle on the bottom. Most communities recycle types 1 and 2 — water bottles and milk jugs.

When you toss a plastic bottle into the blue bin, a whole adventure begins! 1. A collection truck picks up your bin and takes everything to a Materials Recovery Facility — workers sometimes call it a murf. 2. Spinning drums, magnets (for metal cans), and air jets separate the different materials. 3. Workers check the sorting and remove anything that does not belong, like a greasy pizza box that would ruin a whole batch of paper. 4. Sorted materials are crushed into big bales and sold to factories. 5. Factories melt or pulp the material and make new products — your plastic bottle might become the fleece fabric in a winter jacket!

Some things do not belong in recycling OR trash — they go in a compost bin. Composting is nature's recycling. When you put food scraps (apple cores, banana peels, vegetable trimmings) and yard waste (leaves, grass clippings) in a compost bin, billions of tiny organisms break it down into rich dark soil. That finished compost helps gardens grow strong plants. Composting food scraps also keeps methane gas from forming in landfills — methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that warms our planet more than carbon dioxide does.

When trash is not sorted properly, it can end up where it does not belong — in oceans, rivers, and forests. Sea turtles mistake plastic bags for jellyfish and eat them, which can be fatal. Seabirds accidentally feed plastic pieces to their chicks instead of real food. Every time you correctly sort your recycling and compost at home, you help keep wild places clean and safe for animals. Small choices in your kitchen really do reach all the way to the ocean.